Fractured Light By Jocelyn Davies 5x2k16
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HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. A Fractured Light Copyright © 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. www.epicreads.com Library of Congress Catag-in-Publication Data Davies, Jocelyn. A fractured light / by Jocelyn Davies. p. cm. — (Beautiful dark ; bk. 2) Summary: “In the aftermath of Devin’s shocking betrayal, Skye learns that Asher has been using her for the Rebellion. She wishes she could forget about both sides, but as war between the factions looms, Skye is forced to make a choice about where her heart and loyalties truly lie” — Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-0-06-199067-0 [1. Angels—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction. 5. Colorado—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.D28392Fr 2012 2012011525 [Fic]—dc23 CIP AC Typography by Erin Fitzsimmons 12 13 14 15 16 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ❖ First Edition
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I am hovering on the edge. It’s the dead of winter, and snow covers the slopes like it is trying to bury us. I can hear the sound of my classmates’ voices echoing off the mountains as they laugh and horse around. I can see my best friend, Cassie, down on the bunny slope, shrieking as she falls for the thousandth time, and our friend Dan laughing as he helps her up. A few feet away from me, on the top of the mountain, Ian pulls his goggles down over his eyes. I feel drawn to the ledge, tempted by the chasm below. I am always torn. Between control and chaos; ion and tranquility. Between what’s fated and what I want. Part of me longs to take the plunge, to dive off headfirst and let the feeling of control evaporate on the wind. And part of me wants to be in a place where I’d never have to worry about that choice—or any choice. Where peace and calm are the only things I’d feel. After a lifetime of trying to erase the hurt of my parents dying, of Aunt Jo and my devoted friends helping me put the pieces back together again—maybe that is where I belong. Maybe I deserve some peace, after all. But when I take a step back from the ledge, the adrenaline
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fades away, and all that’s left inside me is an empty coldness. I don’t feel the hurt anymore. But I don’t feel happiness, either. There is a voice in my ear, whispering: Make a choice, Skye. You can’t stare off the edge of this cliff forever. In the dream I have every night, I have made up my mind. Every time, I am about to jump. To let the pain rush back in but also every other feeling that comes with it—love and grief and joy. I want to fly down that slope and never look back. I want so many things. The desire is what prevents me from being able to exist in a perpetual state of calm. And so I align my skis. I get ready to push off down the mountain. But someone always stops me. An icy blond angel, his face calmingly familiar and yet terrifying all at once. His wings are so blindingly white I have to close my eyes. And while they’re closed, the cold steel of a blade plummets straight through me. The pain rushes in as the sword comes out. I can’t make a choice between chaos and control, because it’s already been made for me. I am taken away into the clouds. I have the dream every night. And I never wake up to the relief that it’s only a dream. Because for days, I don’t wake up at all.
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he first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the gray light surrounding me like a film of gauze. I winced and squinted, trying to focus my
vision, but the light was so bright that my head began to throb. I closed my eyes again, and I took a deep breath. That was good. I was breathing now, at least. It meant I wasn’t dead. When I opened my eyes again, I tried harder to focus, struggling to make sense of where I was. The cold seeped in around me, and I tried pulling my cream-colored jerseyknit comforter up around my chin. A threadbare fabric brushed my skin instead. This isn’t my blanket. Panicked, I looked for something familiar, some touchstone to show me that I was in my
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bedroom. But everything around me was strange and unknown. I’m not at home. Slowly things began to crystalize. Images and shapes snapped into place; lines sharpened and space defined itself. The light was falling softly through an open window. I could just make out a couple of brushstrokes of color, brown and green smudged against a white sky. Treetops. Colorado in winter. A stray slant of light fell across the faded quilt that covered me. I wiggled my toes and watched the movement cause ripples in the light thrown across the bed. So I wasn’t paralyzed. I tried my fingers, too, and then my neck. I blinked several times and then opened my mouth, stretched it wide, and closed it. I could move, but my muscles and ts felt stiff and unused. How long had I been lying here? As I turned my head, I caught a glimpse of something metal on a wooden nightstand next to my bed, and my body tensed. Instantly my mind flashed to the woods in the darkening gloam of evening, to the glint of metal hurtling toward me. My heart was pounding, and my throat was suddenly dry. I didn’t know if my reaction was caused by my memory or my imagination. What happened to me? 2
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“Wake up,” a female voice whispered, using the hushed tone meant for hospitals and libraries. “Come on. Go sleep downstairs on the couch. You must be exhausted.” Straining to see where the voice was coming from, I honed in on a young woman standing in the far corner of the room. Long chestnut hair hung in a thick, glossy braid down her back. She isn’t talking to me, I realized. Then a second voice yawned in response. A guy’s voice. “Mm-hmm. How long was I asleep?” I tried to see around the woman without moving the muscles below my neck, but that was harder than I’d thought it would be, and I gave up. I could just make out a battered snow boot splayed out behind her. Whoever she was talking to was sitting in a rocking chair in the corner. Something about his rough, scratchy voice was familiar. I felt a spasm in my chest. “Has anything changed?” His voice was hollow, like he already knew the answer. “No,” she said. “And if you want her to get better, you have to let her rest.” “I’m not bothering her if I just sit here, am I?” “It’s not just her I’m worried about. You need rest, too. How are we supposed to protect her if we’re exhausted? Come on, I just slept. It’s your turn.” “But I . . .” “You’re not doing her any favors if you fall asleep again. 3
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With all that’s coming . . .” “I don’t care about what’s coming, Ardith. I care about what happened. If I could just go back to that night—” “Asher, listen to me—” Asher. At the sound of his name, something silvery and light coursed through my veins. My face felt hot and cold at the same time. “You can’t,” the woman said. I wished I could sit up and call to him across the room. But my body wasn’t cooperating. “I just want her back,” he said quietly, and I was struck by how different he sounded. So serious and somber. I couldn’t detect the smallest hint of the usual sly wink in his voice. Thousands of tiny stars pricked across my vision. Something terrible must have happened to me to make Asher this worried. But what? “We all do,” the woman said. “We can’t win this without her.” “Not because of the fight, Ardith.” “I know.” The woman’s shoulders tensed. “Once upon a time someone said that about me. He risked his life to get me back. And look what happened.” Even from my bed in the corner, I could tell these words were full of meaning. I wondered what the story was. They’d clearly known each 4
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other for a long time. “That was different,” said Asher darkly. “It was the same. ion is our way, but love can drive an angel mad, Asher. It can disrupt the heavens, change the outcome of a war.” “Isn’t that the point?” Asher exhaled loudly and kicked his boot out in frustration. He was hundreds of thousands of years old, but he looked and acted just like a seventeenyear-old guy. “I thought we’re all about falling in love and changing the world. Isn’t that what makes us Rebels?” “Ordinarily, yes,” she said. “But these are strange and dangerous times. The truce between the Order and the Rebellion ended the minute Astaroth destroyed Oriax. Now we have to look out for ourselves first.” “A little hypocritical, isn’t it?” He snorted. Ardith stared at him. “Maybe,” she said. “But there are repercussions now that we couldn’t have known. We’re not the Gifted. We can’t divine fate.” “I won’t let go of her,” Asher said, his voice hard. “When she wakes up, she’ll the Rebellion. You’ll see. She’ll help us.” “Yes,” she said. “In the meantime, go to bed. I started a fire down in the fireplace.” Asher sighed, dropped his head into his hands. “I hope this works.” 5
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Ardith placed a hand on his back. “Me too,” she said. She moved out of the way then, and I could see him perfectly. I was reminded instantly of the first time I saw him, leaning up against the wall outside of Love the Bean on the night of my birthday. His hair was so dark, his eyes such a magnetic black that he didn’t just look at ease at night—it seemed as if he was a part of it. The moonlight shone on his high cheekbones, and he had a playful, arrogant glint in his eye. Now his eyes were sad, serious. There was no hint of moonlight, no cocky challenge. His long-sleeved thermal shirt and jeans looked wrinkled and slept-in, like he’d been wearing them for days. His dark hair had grown a little longer and looked wild, like the worry was causing it to stand on end. Something had changed him. Wind rattled the window frame, and I swallowed back a lump of jealousy when Ardith turned around. She was stunning, with dark brown eyes and flawless olive skin. I closed my eyes before she could see me awake. “I want to stay here tonight,” Asher said. “In this chair. You take the bed.” Ardith sighed. “Okay. But if she wakes up, what they said. Don’t talk about what happened. She’s going to be in a precarious state, and it could be dangerous if the memories come rushing back too quickly.” 6
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“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He let out a long breath. “What are we going to do? Even if this works, we can’t take her back to the Rebel camp.” “No,” Ardith agreed. “If she does wake up, her powers will be much too unstable. They’ll collide with so much chaos. It could destroy us. Or her,” she added. “They were right. She’s a ticking time bomb. A weapon waiting to happen.” “But eventually”—Ardith paused—“soon, I hope, she’ll be more controlled. Asher, the memory will trigger powerful emotions in her. You know what she’s capable of in that kind of state. You were there. You have to stave off those memories for a while. If they come rushing back suddenly, it may be too much.” “She can handle it.” “I mean for us.” There was another pause. I was dying to open my eyes, but held back. My heart was in my throat, and I was so afraid that in the silence they would be able to hear it beating faster, hear my breath coming in short, uneven gasps. “I when I felt the way you do now,” Ardith said quietly. I pictured her putting a gentle hand on Asher’s back. “It wasn’t your fault,” Asher said. “What happened to Gideon. It was mine.” He took a breath, and everything 7
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in the room seemed to breathe in with him. “I love her.” “I know,” she said. “And there’s nothing I can say to stop it from happening.” I heard the swish of material, and a door squeak on rusty, ancient hinges. The sound of footsteps going down the stairs. And then, suddenly, it was quiet in the room. So quiet I really could hear the beat of my own heart. Not Asher’s, though. That didn’t exist. I opened my eyes. Asher was still sitting with his head in his hands. His back rose and fell softly with each breath. I couldn’t get his words out of my head. I love her. I couldn’t pretend to sleep anymore. I couldn’t just lie there and not say anything. I love her, I love her, I love her, coaxed my heartbeat. I struggled to sit up. The rickety bed creaked under me. Asher’s head snapped up at the noise. And our eyes met, a flash of darkest lightning, blinding me to everything but the only two things in the world that mattered: I was alive. And Asher loved me.
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e opened our mouths at the same time. I closed mine immediately, but Asher’s remained open. I felt tears spring to my
eyes. Be strong, Skye. You’re alive. You can do this. Asher let out a strangled noise and jumped out of his
chair. “Skye!” he choked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. And then he was beside me, around me, scooping me up in his arms and pressing me tight against him. “It worked,” he said into my hair. “I thought—I didn’t know what to think. It’s my fault. I . . .” My face felt wet, and I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks. “Did I die?” I asked. My voice came out croaky and hoarse.
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He laughed, a soft murmur that sent a thrill through me. “No, you didn’t die. Just scared us for a bit, that’s all.” He pulled away and looked me square in the eyes. “I knew you’d make it.” “Aunt Jo always says I’m nothing if not a fighter,” I said croakily. “Too true,” he said, a grin spreading slowly across his face. He let his thumb slide across the freckles on the bridge of my nose. “You’re a lot of awesome things.” I put my hand over his, and it slid down to cup my cheek. He was staring at me like I was something precious he had almost lost. “What . . . what happened to me?” I asked. “We can talk about all of that later.” “But—” “Right now, just rest,” Asher said soothingly. “We’ll talk when you’re feeling up to it.” “I’m feeling up to it,” I argued, struggling to sit up straighter in the bed. He put a hand on my shoulder to steady me and looked at me seriously. “You really don’t ?” I shook my head, wincing a little at how stiff I felt. Asher pulled back so that he was looking down at me. “You’re alive, Skye,” he said. “You’re safe here. Those 10
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are the important things.” “Way to avoid the question.” My gaze swept past him, to the open window. “Are we in Colorado?” “Yes,” he said. “But, Skye—” “What is this place?” I asked. “We’re in a cabin. But listen, once you start asking questions—” “What kind of cabin? How did you find it?” “Let’s talk about it when you’ve got all your strength back,” Asher said. “I don’t think the Order will be able to find you here.” I paused. The Order. How could I forget that group of angels who could control fate and the Natural Order of the world—including human lives? They believed in living by rules no matter the cost. Their messengers were called Guardians, sent to Earth to carry out their master plan. They had no free will. According to the Order, no one did. Asher grinned at me and raised an eyebrow. “And if all else fails,” he said, “they’ll have to get through me before they can lay a finger on you.” The familiar flash of mischief crept back into his eyes. “Only I get to do that.” I grinned at him challengingly. “Oh, yeah?” It was hard not to feel safe with Asher. He exuded confidence, and in 11
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that moment, I believed him when he said he wouldn’t let anything hurt me. I wondered if my mother had felt the same way with my father. If that was what had led her to believe he was worth risking everything for. My parents had been angels, something I’d only just found out on my seventeenth birthday. My mother was a Guardian, and my father, a Rebel. But by the time they’d given birth to me, they’d already been cast to Earth as mortals—the punishment for loving each other. Now they were dead, and I had powers raging within me that no one seemed to be able to understand. Least of all me. You’d think the Rebellion would be dangerous, with their staunch belief that revolutions and destruction led to rebirth and renewal. But, as I looked into Asher’s dizzying black eyes, I knew that he was right—being safe from the Order was the better option. Something about the Order’s calculated control felt even more dangerous. I had an eerie feeling that there was a specific reason I was scared of them now, too. It had to do with why I was here, with how I’d ended up in a coma in the first place. I could almost . . . . I just needed to get Asher to give me a few details. I looked up at him, and his magnetic grin drew me in 12
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the way it always had. Heat flushed my cheeks. Asher. I ed him so clearly. The emotional memories were as strong as a physical one, a scent or a touch or a song. I had fought against opening up to him for so long. It had been a battle between us: who could be wittier, more playful, more guarded. I didn’t want to it that I was different enough to be special. And he was supposed to protect me, watch out for me, help me to determine my powers, and ultimately guide me toward the dark and the Rebellion. It didn’t feel like that long ago that I had sat, curled up with him on my deck in River Springs, Colorado, a wool blanket wrapped tight around us, snuggled in our Adirondack chair as the moon rose brighter in the sky. The whole point of the Rebellion is so that we can live by our own rules. That’s the entire reason we jumped. I know you’re stuck between two choices, and you don’t exactly have a conscious say in the matter. Your powers will take over when it really counts. But I have a choice, Skye. And there is nothing that I’ve ever wanted more. And then, I’d kissed him. But everything after that was a blur. There had been sirens. Someone I loved had gotten hurt. Aunt Jo was off in the woods, far from home. And something had come 13
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between Asher and me. Something that had landed me here. I knew it had to do with the Order. They had been trying to control my fate for seventeen years. Why stop now? But I’m safe here, I thought as my heart began to beat faster. At least from any bodily harm. And I’m with Asher. His hand was still warm as he cupped my cheek, and I put my hand over his again. A tiny buzz of electricity thrummed and grew stronger where our skin touched. My powers always seemed to generate heat whenever I felt emotional; it was the angelic Rebel blood running through me. I moved his hand down to my neck, as I reached up with my other hand to pull him toward me onto the faded quilt. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he murmured as he let me pull him close, his fingers winding themselves through my hair. His lips were dry from the sun and wind but were warm against mine. They tasted salty, from my tears and maybe his, and I wanted more. I wanted as much of him as I could have. And then a memory coursed through me. He’d been carrying me. Cold feathers brushing my cheek and hair. My eyes were closed, but I could feel the wind rushing past me and smell the winter sky. 14
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His hands were fire on my neck, trailing down my body, finding their way over my jeans and under my sweater. I pulled him even closer to me, tangling him up in the quilt. My limbs were still stiff from my being asleep for so long, but I wasn’t in pain anymore. I was alive. “Stay with me, Skye.” As we flew higher, he grasped me tightly in one arm and pressed a hand over my wound with the other. “Don’t die. You can’t die. Not yet.” Asher’s fingers were searing hot against my skin, and the soft fabric of his thermal shirt grazed my stomach as he drew my body closer to his. He rolled on top of me and the weight of him felt comforting, like gravity was pulling me back down to Earth. I couldn’t break my lips from his. My fingers trailed against his neck and over the rough edges of his jawline. He’d saved my life; he must have. The heat running through my veins threatened to consume me until I combusted in a pop of spark and ash. We were together now. There was nothing standing in our way anymore. The air brushing past us had smelled like pine needles and clouds, and something else. Something black and acrid. Smoke. “Skye!” Asher cried suddenly, pulling away from me sharply and batting at my legs with the quilt. I looked 15
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down and drew in a breath. The hems of my jeans were smoking, bursting into tiny flames. Flames. Asher whipped the blanket out from the tangle at my feet and smothered the fire. But I couldn’t feel anything. I could only sit there, bolt upright, numb, staring at him as he made sure the last of the flames were out. Ardith had been right—my powers were unstable. I was dangerous. My heart was pounding furiously. And not because of what had just happened. But because of what I suddenly ed. In the clearing far below me, a wall of fire rose from where I’d fallen. A black spiral of smoke curled into the air. “Skye, are you okay?” Asher was right next to me, but his voice came from a million miles away as my heart lurched. “The fire’s out,” he said. “It’s okay. Are you hurt?” “Skye!” a voice called. “I have to warn you!” “Hurt?” I asked, as if searching for the meaning of the word. Warn me? I stood there, immobile, rooted to the ground like a tree. “About what?” “From the fire,” said Asher, still trying to catch his breath. “Your powers are still as out of control as ever, it looks like.” He paused to grin devilishly. “Was it because of me?” 16
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A cold blade, icy and sharp, plunged through my stomach. My dream. The flash of metal on the nightstand. The blood blooming out across my shirt like a watercolor rose. “Asher,” I gasped, reaching for my stomach. He looked alarmed. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I was surprised at how sudden the pain was when it came on. “I . I it all.” “Skye, calm down,” Asher urged. His eyes searched mine. “You don’t want to get too agitated. We have no idea what could happen. What you could do.” But I ignored him. I ed now. And the truth was even more terrifying than I could imagine. “It was Devin,” I said. “He tried to kill me.”
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he little room in the cabin in the woods was suddenly much too warm, and I could feel a faint rumbling beneath us as I struggled to steady my
breathing. Asher noticed, too. “Shh,” he said, like I was some wild animal who needed to be soothed. “Stay calm. You’re okay, ? You’re safe. You don’t want to cause anything else to happen.” Eyeing him, I felt around my midsection for a wound where Devin had stabbed me. But there was none. No bandages or tenderness. I lifted my sweater a few inches and looked down. The skin on my stomach was smooth. It looked the same way it always had. There was no evidence that I’d been stabbed at all. “He did—didn’t he? I . . .” I winced and
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brought my sweater back down. “He stabbed me.” I whispered the words, afraid, however irrationally, that saying them out loud could somehow make it happen again. “He stared me right in the eye while he did it.” Asher’s face clouded over. “Why?” I asked, panic and confusion and a deep, aching sadness welling in me. “Why would he do that? I thought—he said—he loved me.” “As if I needed a reason to hate him more,” Asher muttered, avoiding my gaze. I immediately regretted saying anything. The Order and the Rebellion would hate each other until the end of time, and Asher and Devin were just pawns in the great rivalry. They couldn’t look at each other without the air between them turning at least ten degrees colder. “I didn’t say I loved him back,” I said quietly. “I know.” He continued to be fascinated by a knot in the wooden planks of the floor, his hands balling into fists at his sides. I took his hands in mine and slowly uncurled his fingers. He looked up at me, something in his eyes softening. “Did you save my life?” I asked. Asher’s face turned a brilliant shade of red, and I could feel his fingers trembling slightly. “I don’t know, I mean . . .” I 19
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grinned, and he suddenly seemed to snap out of his embarrassment. “You bet I did,” he said, some of his old cockiness returning. “And I’m taking full credit. I was able to get you here just in time, too. The fact that you didn’t die immediately from that sword is a credit to your human blood. If you were a full angel, you’d have died in a heartbeat.” He frowned. “I’m sure the Order is real thrilled about all this. They thought they’d eliminated you as a threat.” “Well, they were wrong,” I said. “Glad to see the coma didn’t knock out the fighter in you.” Asher smiled and leaned back in his chair. “What happened to Devin? After we left?” “Don’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching me. “Maybe he burned up in the fire? That would be a happy ending to all this.” I thought about the golden-haired angel who’d been my friend. He’d been more than that—the only one I could turn to when I was feeling alone and scared and had no one to trust. And he’d been prepared to betray me all along. Rage simmered just below the surface of my skin. But still, I couldn’t quite wish him dead. I leaned back on the pillows, suddenly exhausted. “So how long was I out? Aunt Jo, my friends—will they be worried?” 20
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“It’s been a couple of days.” I stared at him blankly, trying to suppress the panic. “Yeah,” he said. “They’re probably pretty worried.” “Does Aunt Jo know I’m all right? Have you heard from Cassie?” Asher’s face twisted uncomfortably. He looked almost guilty. “What?” I said, the panic building. The last time I’d seen Cassie, she was in a coma, in the hospital. “What about her? Have you talked to her?” Suddenly the thought of life without my best friend caved in on me. I could do a lot of things. I could create fire and cause a flood and had angel blood running through me. But I couldn’t live without Cassie. “Asher, is she okay?” He looked down and shook his head. “I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know how without revealing myself. I couldn’t just call your aunt on the phone and say, ‘Hey, Skye is in a coma! But I can’t tell you how it happened or where she is, so don’t ask!’ Imagine if all I could say was ‘Trust me’? Come on, Skye. Look at me. Even I don’t trust myself.” He looked up and spread his arms wide, showing off. The rumpled shirt. The faded jeans. The scuffed-up boots and the devilish grin. If I was Aunt Jo, I wouldn’t have trusted him with my life, either. It had taken forever for me to trust him myself. “I guess.” 21
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“That and . . .” “And what?” I asked. “They wouldn’t let me. The elders. They forbade me from ing your family and friends until we knew what would happen to you.” “How could they do that?” “The truce is over. All bets are off. Just because the Rebellion doesn’t control your fate doesn’t mean they don’t want things to go their way.” An uneasy anger took over me. “They need me, don’t they? They need my powers.” Asher stood up and gripped my hand. “You’re so important to this fight, Skye. I wish you knew just how important you are.” His eyes glittered, serious. Suddenly I wondered if we were talking about the Rebellion anymore. Asher put a tentative arm around me. “Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.” I leaned into his chest and felt another rush of emotions at the familiar scent of cinnamon and cloves. Spicy and sweet. It reminded me of so many things: the time we got stuck in the ice cave on the ski trip and he showed me how to create fire in the palms of my hands; the magical night on the snowmobile with the tiny balls of fire that floated around us like lanterns; 22
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and the night I realized how badly I wanted to be with Asher, that I couldn’t do it alone. That I needed someone. I needed him. I snuck a glance at his dark eyes. He needed me, too. It struck me that as long as I was with Asher, maybe I was home. I was safe here. The Order couldn’t hurt me. And my powers of the dark were way stronger than those of the light. Ever since the two angels had descended on my life, I’d been so against making a decision. Everyone had a plan for me, something that they wanted from me. But maybe I knew what I wanted. Maybe I’d already made a decision. We had to be quiet. The cabin had no electricity, and when we lit a fire, Asher closed the dusty curtains to make sure no one could see us from the woods—in case anyone from the Order was watching. They couldn’t just rely on the Sight anymore. As Asher reminded me, my powers were blurring the destiny of everyone around me. They’d have to resort to other methods. It took a few days before I really started to feel better. I was exhausted constantly, and Asher and Ardith took turns watching me from the chair as I drifted in and out of sleep. Jealous as I had been when I first saw her, I couldn’t 23
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help but like Ardith. When Asher was asleep and she watched over me, I’d try to get her to talk. “How long have you known Asher?” I asked one night. The moon hung high in the black sky, shining light across the floor of the small bedroom. I was curled on my side, the quilt pulled up under my chin, and Ardith sat in the rocking chair across the dark room. Every time she rocked forward, her face would emerge from the shadows. “A long time,” she said. “Since we were very young. We used to beg to be sent to Earth on missions like our parents. And each time they told us, ‘Not until you’re older.’” She smiled at me. “Then when we were older, we wanted to be young again. The things we’ve both seen.” She shook her head. “We wished we’d never asked.” I hesitated. A shadow ed in front of the moon, and I couldn’t see her face anymore. “Why?” I asked. “Being a Rebel, it’s not easy,” she said. “The constant chaos. Reacting to the Order’s plans. It’s not easy being a Guardian either, but that I do not know firsthand.” “It must be hard having only those two options. Dark and Light and nothing in between.” A wry smile cracked her face. “You of all people should know how that feels, Skye.” 24
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It was true, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem right. There had to be a middle place. Otherwise, how did someone not lose her mind? How would I not lose my mind? I lay awake for a long time, thinking and watching the pattern of moonlight shift on the wood floor. When I looked up, I realized Ardith was asleep. It seemed strange to me that an angel would need sleep, but then I ed what Asher had told me. When we’re on Earth, we take on human form, human desires, human needs. I wondered what they were like when they weren’t on Earth. What were angel needs? I was feeling restless. Quietly, so as not to wake Ardith, I pulled back the blankets and crept out of the room. I shifted my weight slowly on the old wood floor, careful not to step on any creaky planks as I tiptoed down the hall and crept gingerly down the stairs. I kept close to the wall and peered into the large main room of the cabin. Asher sat hunched forward on the couch near the fireplace. But there was no fire burning within it. Instead, it had risen from the hearth into the air itself. Orange and red and yellow and blue flames crackled above him in the dark room, casting shadows that danced on the walls. As I watched, the flames fanned out in a circle, and 25
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he sat below it, his head in his hands. What was he doing? Asher’s back rose and fell rhythmically, with each breath. He looked so controlled, like he was doing everything in his power to breathe steadily. Given to following his every mood and whim, Asher wasn’t exactly good at self-control. Watching him now filled me with a strange sense of awe. I wondered what he was controlling. As I stood there, his breath hitched and his chest spasmed slightly. As if he couldn’t hold it in anymore, a strangled noise escaped him. Oh, no, I thought, realizing too late that I was watching something I shouldn’t. I went to move, but my foot hit a loose floorboard that squeaked beneath me. Asher’s head shot up, and we locked eyes. I gasped. The storm that swirled in them threatened to overpower me. It was a look that I’d seen only once before, the night we’d gotten into a fight on my roof. What he’d said to me that night came rushing back as if he’d said the words yesterday. “Do you know why I joke all the time?” He stood up as if he’d been wound up and sprung. His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Do you know why I’ve been keeping things all light and devilmay-care? Because if you knew—if you really knew what was happening—inside of you, within the Order, within the Rebellion, if you knew what the angels are saying, what’s waiting for you, 26
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you would be sobbing, Skye. You would be paralyzed with fear. That’s why I tease you. I’m doing it for you. Because if I didn’t, you wouldn’t make it. You wouldn’t last another week.” Asher tore his eyes away from mine. The fire fell to the ground abruptly, turning to smoldering ash as it hit the floor. I took an involuntary step backward into the shadows, pressing myself flat against the wall. He never showed me when he was worried or upset. That’s what he’d been trying to tell me that night on the roof. What I was seeing now was something I wasn’t supposed to. Some private moment that Asher hadn’t wanted me to see. Something he tried, every day, to hide from me by covering it up with wisecracks and banter. It was fear. Asher was afraid. Before he could say anything, I turned and ran back up to my room, snuggling deep under the quilt until morning. He didn’t come after me.
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HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. A Fractured Light Copyright © 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. www.epicreads.com Library of Congress Catag-in-Publication Data Davies, Jocelyn. A fractured light / by Jocelyn Davies. p. cm. — (Beautiful dark ; bk. 2) Summary: “In the aftermath of Devin’s shocking betrayal, Skye learns that Asher has been using her for the Rebellion. She wishes she could forget about both sides, but as war between the factions looms, Skye is forced to make a choice about where her heart and loyalties truly lie” — Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-0-06-199067-0 [1. Angels—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction. 5. Colorado—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.D28392Fr 2012 2012011525 [Fic]—dc23 CIP AC Typography by Erin Fitzsimmons 12 13 14 15 16 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ❖ First Edition
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I am hovering on the edge. It’s the dead of winter, and snow covers the slopes like it is trying to bury us. I can hear the sound of my classmates’ voices echoing off the mountains as they laugh and horse around. I can see my best friend, Cassie, down on the bunny slope, shrieking as she falls for the thousandth time, and our friend Dan laughing as he helps her up. A few feet away from me, on the top of the mountain, Ian pulls his goggles down over his eyes. I feel drawn to the ledge, tempted by the chasm below. I am always torn. Between control and chaos; ion and tranquility. Between what’s fated and what I want. Part of me longs to take the plunge, to dive off headfirst and let the feeling of control evaporate on the wind. And part of me wants to be in a place where I’d never have to worry about that choice—or any choice. Where peace and calm are the only things I’d feel. After a lifetime of trying to erase the hurt of my parents dying, of Aunt Jo and my devoted friends helping me put the pieces back together again—maybe that is where I belong. Maybe I deserve some peace, after all. But when I take a step back from the ledge, the adrenaline
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fades away, and all that’s left inside me is an empty coldness. I don’t feel the hurt anymore. But I don’t feel happiness, either. There is a voice in my ear, whispering: Make a choice, Skye. You can’t stare off the edge of this cliff forever. In the dream I have every night, I have made up my mind. Every time, I am about to jump. To let the pain rush back in but also every other feeling that comes with it—love and grief and joy. I want to fly down that slope and never look back. I want so many things. The desire is what prevents me from being able to exist in a perpetual state of calm. And so I align my skis. I get ready to push off down the mountain. But someone always stops me. An icy blond angel, his face calmingly familiar and yet terrifying all at once. His wings are so blindingly white I have to close my eyes. And while they’re closed, the cold steel of a blade plummets straight through me. The pain rushes in as the sword comes out. I can’t make a choice between chaos and control, because it’s already been made for me. I am taken away into the clouds. I have the dream every night. And I never wake up to the relief that it’s only a dream. Because for days, I don’t wake up at all.
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he first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the gray light surrounding me like a film of gauze. I winced and squinted, trying to focus my
vision, but the light was so bright that my head began to throb. I closed my eyes again, and I took a deep breath. That was good. I was breathing now, at least. It meant I wasn’t dead. When I opened my eyes again, I tried harder to focus, struggling to make sense of where I was. The cold seeped in around me, and I tried pulling my cream-colored jerseyknit comforter up around my chin. A threadbare fabric brushed my skin instead. This isn’t my blanket. Panicked, I looked for something familiar, some touchstone to show me that I was in my
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bedroom. But everything around me was strange and unknown. I’m not at home. Slowly things began to crystalize. Images and shapes snapped into place; lines sharpened and space defined itself. The light was falling softly through an open window. I could just make out a couple of brushstrokes of color, brown and green smudged against a white sky. Treetops. Colorado in winter. A stray slant of light fell across the faded quilt that covered me. I wiggled my toes and watched the movement cause ripples in the light thrown across the bed. So I wasn’t paralyzed. I tried my fingers, too, and then my neck. I blinked several times and then opened my mouth, stretched it wide, and closed it. I could move, but my muscles and ts felt stiff and unused. How long had I been lying here? As I turned my head, I caught a glimpse of something metal on a wooden nightstand next to my bed, and my body tensed. Instantly my mind flashed to the woods in the darkening gloam of evening, to the glint of metal hurtling toward me. My heart was pounding, and my throat was suddenly dry. I didn’t know if my reaction was caused by my memory or my imagination. What happened to me? 2
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“Wake up,” a female voice whispered, using the hushed tone meant for hospitals and libraries. “Come on. Go sleep downstairs on the couch. You must be exhausted.” Straining to see where the voice was coming from, I honed in on a young woman standing in the far corner of the room. Long chestnut hair hung in a thick, glossy braid down her back. She isn’t talking to me, I realized. Then a second voice yawned in response. A guy’s voice. “Mm-hmm. How long was I asleep?” I tried to see around the woman without moving the muscles below my neck, but that was harder than I’d thought it would be, and I gave up. I could just make out a battered snow boot splayed out behind her. Whoever she was talking to was sitting in a rocking chair in the corner. Something about his rough, scratchy voice was familiar. I felt a spasm in my chest. “Has anything changed?” His voice was hollow, like he already knew the answer. “No,” she said. “And if you want her to get better, you have to let her rest.” “I’m not bothering her if I just sit here, am I?” “It’s not just her I’m worried about. You need rest, too. How are we supposed to protect her if we’re exhausted? Come on, I just slept. It’s your turn.” “But I . . .” “You’re not doing her any favors if you fall asleep again. 3
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With all that’s coming . . .” “I don’t care about what’s coming, Ardith. I care about what happened. If I could just go back to that night—” “Asher, listen to me—” Asher. At the sound of his name, something silvery and light coursed through my veins. My face felt hot and cold at the same time. “You can’t,” the woman said. I wished I could sit up and call to him across the room. But my body wasn’t cooperating. “I just want her back,” he said quietly, and I was struck by how different he sounded. So serious and somber. I couldn’t detect the smallest hint of the usual sly wink in his voice. Thousands of tiny stars pricked across my vision. Something terrible must have happened to me to make Asher this worried. But what? “We all do,” the woman said. “We can’t win this without her.” “Not because of the fight, Ardith.” “I know.” The woman’s shoulders tensed. “Once upon a time someone said that about me. He risked his life to get me back. And look what happened.” Even from my bed in the corner, I could tell these words were full of meaning. I wondered what the story was. They’d clearly known each 4
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other for a long time. “That was different,” said Asher darkly. “It was the same. ion is our way, but love can drive an angel mad, Asher. It can disrupt the heavens, change the outcome of a war.” “Isn’t that the point?” Asher exhaled loudly and kicked his boot out in frustration. He was hundreds of thousands of years old, but he looked and acted just like a seventeenyear-old guy. “I thought we’re all about falling in love and changing the world. Isn’t that what makes us Rebels?” “Ordinarily, yes,” she said. “But these are strange and dangerous times. The truce between the Order and the Rebellion ended the minute Astaroth destroyed Oriax. Now we have to look out for ourselves first.” “A little hypocritical, isn’t it?” He snorted. Ardith stared at him. “Maybe,” she said. “But there are repercussions now that we couldn’t have known. We’re not the Gifted. We can’t divine fate.” “I won’t let go of her,” Asher said, his voice hard. “When she wakes up, she’ll the Rebellion. You’ll see. She’ll help us.” “Yes,” she said. “In the meantime, go to bed. I started a fire down in the fireplace.” Asher sighed, dropped his head into his hands. “I hope this works.” 5
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Ardith placed a hand on his back. “Me too,” she said. She moved out of the way then, and I could see him perfectly. I was reminded instantly of the first time I saw him, leaning up against the wall outside of Love the Bean on the night of my birthday. His hair was so dark, his eyes such a magnetic black that he didn’t just look at ease at night—it seemed as if he was a part of it. The moonlight shone on his high cheekbones, and he had a playful, arrogant glint in his eye. Now his eyes were sad, serious. There was no hint of moonlight, no cocky challenge. His long-sleeved thermal shirt and jeans looked wrinkled and slept-in, like he’d been wearing them for days. His dark hair had grown a little longer and looked wild, like the worry was causing it to stand on end. Something had changed him. Wind rattled the window frame, and I swallowed back a lump of jealousy when Ardith turned around. She was stunning, with dark brown eyes and flawless olive skin. I closed my eyes before she could see me awake. “I want to stay here tonight,” Asher said. “In this chair. You take the bed.” Ardith sighed. “Okay. But if she wakes up, what they said. Don’t talk about what happened. She’s going to be in a precarious state, and it could be dangerous if the memories come rushing back too quickly.” 6
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“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He let out a long breath. “What are we going to do? Even if this works, we can’t take her back to the Rebel camp.” “No,” Ardith agreed. “If she does wake up, her powers will be much too unstable. They’ll collide with so much chaos. It could destroy us. Or her,” she added. “They were right. She’s a ticking time bomb. A weapon waiting to happen.” “But eventually”—Ardith paused—“soon, I hope, she’ll be more controlled. Asher, the memory will trigger powerful emotions in her. You know what she’s capable of in that kind of state. You were there. You have to stave off those memories for a while. If they come rushing back suddenly, it may be too much.” “She can handle it.” “I mean for us.” There was another pause. I was dying to open my eyes, but held back. My heart was in my throat, and I was so afraid that in the silence they would be able to hear it beating faster, hear my breath coming in short, uneven gasps. “I when I felt the way you do now,” Ardith said quietly. I pictured her putting a gentle hand on Asher’s back. “It wasn’t your fault,” Asher said. “What happened to Gideon. It was mine.” He took a breath, and everything 7
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in the room seemed to breathe in with him. “I love her.” “I know,” she said. “And there’s nothing I can say to stop it from happening.” I heard the swish of material, and a door squeak on rusty, ancient hinges. The sound of footsteps going down the stairs. And then, suddenly, it was quiet in the room. So quiet I really could hear the beat of my own heart. Not Asher’s, though. That didn’t exist. I opened my eyes. Asher was still sitting with his head in his hands. His back rose and fell softly with each breath. I couldn’t get his words out of my head. I love her. I couldn’t pretend to sleep anymore. I couldn’t just lie there and not say anything. I love her, I love her, I love her, coaxed my heartbeat. I struggled to sit up. The rickety bed creaked under me. Asher’s head snapped up at the noise. And our eyes met, a flash of darkest lightning, blinding me to everything but the only two things in the world that mattered: I was alive. And Asher loved me.
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e opened our mouths at the same time. I closed mine immediately, but Asher’s remained open. I felt tears spring to my
eyes. Be strong, Skye. You’re alive. You can do this. Asher let out a strangled noise and jumped out of his
chair. “Skye!” he choked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. And then he was beside me, around me, scooping me up in his arms and pressing me tight against him. “It worked,” he said into my hair. “I thought—I didn’t know what to think. It’s my fault. I . . .” My face felt wet, and I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks. “Did I die?” I asked. My voice came out croaky and hoarse.
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He laughed, a soft murmur that sent a thrill through me. “No, you didn’t die. Just scared us for a bit, that’s all.” He pulled away and looked me square in the eyes. “I knew you’d make it.” “Aunt Jo always says I’m nothing if not a fighter,” I said croakily. “Too true,” he said, a grin spreading slowly across his face. He let his thumb slide across the freckles on the bridge of my nose. “You’re a lot of awesome things.” I put my hand over his, and it slid down to cup my cheek. He was staring at me like I was something precious he had almost lost. “What . . . what happened to me?” I asked. “We can talk about all of that later.” “But—” “Right now, just rest,” Asher said soothingly. “We’ll talk when you’re feeling up to it.” “I’m feeling up to it,” I argued, struggling to sit up straighter in the bed. He put a hand on my shoulder to steady me and looked at me seriously. “You really don’t ?” I shook my head, wincing a little at how stiff I felt. Asher pulled back so that he was looking down at me. “You’re alive, Skye,” he said. “You’re safe here. Those 10
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are the important things.” “Way to avoid the question.” My gaze swept past him, to the open window. “Are we in Colorado?” “Yes,” he said. “But, Skye—” “What is this place?” I asked. “We’re in a cabin. But listen, once you start asking questions—” “What kind of cabin? How did you find it?” “Let’s talk about it when you’ve got all your strength back,” Asher said. “I don’t think the Order will be able to find you here.” I paused. The Order. How could I forget that group of angels who could control fate and the Natural Order of the world—including human lives? They believed in living by rules no matter the cost. Their messengers were called Guardians, sent to Earth to carry out their master plan. They had no free will. According to the Order, no one did. Asher grinned at me and raised an eyebrow. “And if all else fails,” he said, “they’ll have to get through me before they can lay a finger on you.” The familiar flash of mischief crept back into his eyes. “Only I get to do that.” I grinned at him challengingly. “Oh, yeah?” It was hard not to feel safe with Asher. He exuded confidence, and in 11
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that moment, I believed him when he said he wouldn’t let anything hurt me. I wondered if my mother had felt the same way with my father. If that was what had led her to believe he was worth risking everything for. My parents had been angels, something I’d only just found out on my seventeenth birthday. My mother was a Guardian, and my father, a Rebel. But by the time they’d given birth to me, they’d already been cast to Earth as mortals—the punishment for loving each other. Now they were dead, and I had powers raging within me that no one seemed to be able to understand. Least of all me. You’d think the Rebellion would be dangerous, with their staunch belief that revolutions and destruction led to rebirth and renewal. But, as I looked into Asher’s dizzying black eyes, I knew that he was right—being safe from the Order was the better option. Something about the Order’s calculated control felt even more dangerous. I had an eerie feeling that there was a specific reason I was scared of them now, too. It had to do with why I was here, with how I’d ended up in a coma in the first place. I could almost . . . . I just needed to get Asher to give me a few details. I looked up at him, and his magnetic grin drew me in 12
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the way it always had. Heat flushed my cheeks. Asher. I ed him so clearly. The emotional memories were as strong as a physical one, a scent or a touch or a song. I had fought against opening up to him for so long. It had been a battle between us: who could be wittier, more playful, more guarded. I didn’t want to it that I was different enough to be special. And he was supposed to protect me, watch out for me, help me to determine my powers, and ultimately guide me toward the dark and the Rebellion. It didn’t feel like that long ago that I had sat, curled up with him on my deck in River Springs, Colorado, a wool blanket wrapped tight around us, snuggled in our Adirondack chair as the moon rose brighter in the sky. The whole point of the Rebellion is so that we can live by our own rules. That’s the entire reason we jumped. I know you’re stuck between two choices, and you don’t exactly have a conscious say in the matter. Your powers will take over when it really counts. But I have a choice, Skye. And there is nothing that I’ve ever wanted more. And then, I’d kissed him. But everything after that was a blur. There had been sirens. Someone I loved had gotten hurt. Aunt Jo was off in the woods, far from home. And something had come 13
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between Asher and me. Something that had landed me here. I knew it had to do with the Order. They had been trying to control my fate for seventeen years. Why stop now? But I’m safe here, I thought as my heart began to beat faster. At least from any bodily harm. And I’m with Asher. His hand was still warm as he cupped my cheek, and I put my hand over his again. A tiny buzz of electricity thrummed and grew stronger where our skin touched. My powers always seemed to generate heat whenever I felt emotional; it was the angelic Rebel blood running through me. I moved his hand down to my neck, as I reached up with my other hand to pull him toward me onto the faded quilt. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he murmured as he let me pull him close, his fingers winding themselves through my hair. His lips were dry from the sun and wind but were warm against mine. They tasted salty, from my tears and maybe his, and I wanted more. I wanted as much of him as I could have. And then a memory coursed through me. He’d been carrying me. Cold feathers brushing my cheek and hair. My eyes were closed, but I could feel the wind rushing past me and smell the winter sky. 14
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His hands were fire on my neck, trailing down my body, finding their way over my jeans and under my sweater. I pulled him even closer to me, tangling him up in the quilt. My limbs were still stiff from my being asleep for so long, but I wasn’t in pain anymore. I was alive. “Stay with me, Skye.” As we flew higher, he grasped me tightly in one arm and pressed a hand over my wound with the other. “Don’t die. You can’t die. Not yet.” Asher’s fingers were searing hot against my skin, and the soft fabric of his thermal shirt grazed my stomach as he drew my body closer to his. He rolled on top of me and the weight of him felt comforting, like gravity was pulling me back down to Earth. I couldn’t break my lips from his. My fingers trailed against his neck and over the rough edges of his jawline. He’d saved my life; he must have. The heat running through my veins threatened to consume me until I combusted in a pop of spark and ash. We were together now. There was nothing standing in our way anymore. The air brushing past us had smelled like pine needles and clouds, and something else. Something black and acrid. Smoke. “Skye!” Asher cried suddenly, pulling away from me sharply and batting at my legs with the quilt. I looked 15
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down and drew in a breath. The hems of my jeans were smoking, bursting into tiny flames. Flames. Asher whipped the blanket out from the tangle at my feet and smothered the fire. But I couldn’t feel anything. I could only sit there, bolt upright, numb, staring at him as he made sure the last of the flames were out. Ardith had been right—my powers were unstable. I was dangerous. My heart was pounding furiously. And not because of what had just happened. But because of what I suddenly ed. In the clearing far below me, a wall of fire rose from where I’d fallen. A black spiral of smoke curled into the air. “Skye, are you okay?” Asher was right next to me, but his voice came from a million miles away as my heart lurched. “The fire’s out,” he said. “It’s okay. Are you hurt?” “Skye!” a voice called. “I have to warn you!” “Hurt?” I asked, as if searching for the meaning of the word. Warn me? I stood there, immobile, rooted to the ground like a tree. “About what?” “From the fire,” said Asher, still trying to catch his breath. “Your powers are still as out of control as ever, it looks like.” He paused to grin devilishly. “Was it because of me?” 16
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A cold blade, icy and sharp, plunged through my stomach. My dream. The flash of metal on the nightstand. The blood blooming out across my shirt like a watercolor rose. “Asher,” I gasped, reaching for my stomach. He looked alarmed. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I was surprised at how sudden the pain was when it came on. “I . I it all.” “Skye, calm down,” Asher urged. His eyes searched mine. “You don’t want to get too agitated. We have no idea what could happen. What you could do.” But I ignored him. I ed now. And the truth was even more terrifying than I could imagine. “It was Devin,” I said. “He tried to kill me.”
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he little room in the cabin in the woods was suddenly much too warm, and I could feel a faint rumbling beneath us as I struggled to steady my
breathing. Asher noticed, too. “Shh,” he said, like I was some wild animal who needed to be soothed. “Stay calm. You’re okay, ? You’re safe. You don’t want to cause anything else to happen.” Eyeing him, I felt around my midsection for a wound where Devin had stabbed me. But there was none. No bandages or tenderness. I lifted my sweater a few inches and looked down. The skin on my stomach was smooth. It looked the same way it always had. There was no evidence that I’d been stabbed at all. “He did—didn’t he? I . . .” I winced and
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brought my sweater back down. “He stabbed me.” I whispered the words, afraid, however irrationally, that saying them out loud could somehow make it happen again. “He stared me right in the eye while he did it.” Asher’s face clouded over. “Why?” I asked, panic and confusion and a deep, aching sadness welling in me. “Why would he do that? I thought—he said—he loved me.” “As if I needed a reason to hate him more,” Asher muttered, avoiding my gaze. I immediately regretted saying anything. The Order and the Rebellion would hate each other until the end of time, and Asher and Devin were just pawns in the great rivalry. They couldn’t look at each other without the air between them turning at least ten degrees colder. “I didn’t say I loved him back,” I said quietly. “I know.” He continued to be fascinated by a knot in the wooden planks of the floor, his hands balling into fists at his sides. I took his hands in mine and slowly uncurled his fingers. He looked up at me, something in his eyes softening. “Did you save my life?” I asked. Asher’s face turned a brilliant shade of red, and I could feel his fingers trembling slightly. “I don’t know, I mean . . .” I 19
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grinned, and he suddenly seemed to snap out of his embarrassment. “You bet I did,” he said, some of his old cockiness returning. “And I’m taking full credit. I was able to get you here just in time, too. The fact that you didn’t die immediately from that sword is a credit to your human blood. If you were a full angel, you’d have died in a heartbeat.” He frowned. “I’m sure the Order is real thrilled about all this. They thought they’d eliminated you as a threat.” “Well, they were wrong,” I said. “Glad to see the coma didn’t knock out the fighter in you.” Asher smiled and leaned back in his chair. “What happened to Devin? After we left?” “Don’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching me. “Maybe he burned up in the fire? That would be a happy ending to all this.” I thought about the golden-haired angel who’d been my friend. He’d been more than that—the only one I could turn to when I was feeling alone and scared and had no one to trust. And he’d been prepared to betray me all along. Rage simmered just below the surface of my skin. But still, I couldn’t quite wish him dead. I leaned back on the pillows, suddenly exhausted. “So how long was I out? Aunt Jo, my friends—will they be worried?” 20
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“It’s been a couple of days.” I stared at him blankly, trying to suppress the panic. “Yeah,” he said. “They’re probably pretty worried.” “Does Aunt Jo know I’m all right? Have you heard from Cassie?” Asher’s face twisted uncomfortably. He looked almost guilty. “What?” I said, the panic building. The last time I’d seen Cassie, she was in a coma, in the hospital. “What about her? Have you talked to her?” Suddenly the thought of life without my best friend caved in on me. I could do a lot of things. I could create fire and cause a flood and had angel blood running through me. But I couldn’t live without Cassie. “Asher, is she okay?” He looked down and shook his head. “I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know how without revealing myself. I couldn’t just call your aunt on the phone and say, ‘Hey, Skye is in a coma! But I can’t tell you how it happened or where she is, so don’t ask!’ Imagine if all I could say was ‘Trust me’? Come on, Skye. Look at me. Even I don’t trust myself.” He looked up and spread his arms wide, showing off. The rumpled shirt. The faded jeans. The scuffed-up boots and the devilish grin. If I was Aunt Jo, I wouldn’t have trusted him with my life, either. It had taken forever for me to trust him myself. “I guess.” 21
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“That and . . .” “And what?” I asked. “They wouldn’t let me. The elders. They forbade me from ing your family and friends until we knew what would happen to you.” “How could they do that?” “The truce is over. All bets are off. Just because the Rebellion doesn’t control your fate doesn’t mean they don’t want things to go their way.” An uneasy anger took over me. “They need me, don’t they? They need my powers.” Asher stood up and gripped my hand. “You’re so important to this fight, Skye. I wish you knew just how important you are.” His eyes glittered, serious. Suddenly I wondered if we were talking about the Rebellion anymore. Asher put a tentative arm around me. “Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.” I leaned into his chest and felt another rush of emotions at the familiar scent of cinnamon and cloves. Spicy and sweet. It reminded me of so many things: the time we got stuck in the ice cave on the ski trip and he showed me how to create fire in the palms of my hands; the magical night on the snowmobile with the tiny balls of fire that floated around us like lanterns; 22
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and the night I realized how badly I wanted to be with Asher, that I couldn’t do it alone. That I needed someone. I needed him. I snuck a glance at his dark eyes. He needed me, too. It struck me that as long as I was with Asher, maybe I was home. I was safe here. The Order couldn’t hurt me. And my powers of the dark were way stronger than those of the light. Ever since the two angels had descended on my life, I’d been so against making a decision. Everyone had a plan for me, something that they wanted from me. But maybe I knew what I wanted. Maybe I’d already made a decision. We had to be quiet. The cabin had no electricity, and when we lit a fire, Asher closed the dusty curtains to make sure no one could see us from the woods—in case anyone from the Order was watching. They couldn’t just rely on the Sight anymore. As Asher reminded me, my powers were blurring the destiny of everyone around me. They’d have to resort to other methods. It took a few days before I really started to feel better. I was exhausted constantly, and Asher and Ardith took turns watching me from the chair as I drifted in and out of sleep. Jealous as I had been when I first saw her, I couldn’t 23
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help but like Ardith. When Asher was asleep and she watched over me, I’d try to get her to talk. “How long have you known Asher?” I asked one night. The moon hung high in the black sky, shining light across the floor of the small bedroom. I was curled on my side, the quilt pulled up under my chin, and Ardith sat in the rocking chair across the dark room. Every time she rocked forward, her face would emerge from the shadows. “A long time,” she said. “Since we were very young. We used to beg to be sent to Earth on missions like our parents. And each time they told us, ‘Not until you’re older.’” She smiled at me. “Then when we were older, we wanted to be young again. The things we’ve both seen.” She shook her head. “We wished we’d never asked.” I hesitated. A shadow ed in front of the moon, and I couldn’t see her face anymore. “Why?” I asked. “Being a Rebel, it’s not easy,” she said. “The constant chaos. Reacting to the Order’s plans. It’s not easy being a Guardian either, but that I do not know firsthand.” “It must be hard having only those two options. Dark and Light and nothing in between.” A wry smile cracked her face. “You of all people should know how that feels, Skye.” 24
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It was true, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem right. There had to be a middle place. Otherwise, how did someone not lose her mind? How would I not lose my mind? I lay awake for a long time, thinking and watching the pattern of moonlight shift on the wood floor. When I looked up, I realized Ardith was asleep. It seemed strange to me that an angel would need sleep, but then I ed what Asher had told me. When we’re on Earth, we take on human form, human desires, human needs. I wondered what they were like when they weren’t on Earth. What were angel needs? I was feeling restless. Quietly, so as not to wake Ardith, I pulled back the blankets and crept out of the room. I shifted my weight slowly on the old wood floor, careful not to step on any creaky planks as I tiptoed down the hall and crept gingerly down the stairs. I kept close to the wall and peered into the large main room of the cabin. Asher sat hunched forward on the couch near the fireplace. But there was no fire burning within it. Instead, it had risen from the hearth into the air itself. Orange and red and yellow and blue flames crackled above him in the dark room, casting shadows that danced on the walls. As I watched, the flames fanned out in a circle, and 25
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he sat below it, his head in his hands. What was he doing? Asher’s back rose and fell rhythmically, with each breath. He looked so controlled, like he was doing everything in his power to breathe steadily. Given to following his every mood and whim, Asher wasn’t exactly good at self-control. Watching him now filled me with a strange sense of awe. I wondered what he was controlling. As I stood there, his breath hitched and his chest spasmed slightly. As if he couldn’t hold it in anymore, a strangled noise escaped him. Oh, no, I thought, realizing too late that I was watching something I shouldn’t. I went to move, but my foot hit a loose floorboard that squeaked beneath me. Asher’s head shot up, and we locked eyes. I gasped. The storm that swirled in them threatened to overpower me. It was a look that I’d seen only once before, the night we’d gotten into a fight on my roof. What he’d said to me that night came rushing back as if he’d said the words yesterday. “Do you know why I joke all the time?” He stood up as if he’d been wound up and sprung. His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Do you know why I’ve been keeping things all light and devilmay-care? Because if you knew—if you really knew what was happening—inside of you, within the Order, within the Rebellion, if you knew what the angels are saying, what’s waiting for you, 26
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you would be sobbing, Skye. You would be paralyzed with fear. That’s why I tease you. I’m doing it for you. Because if I didn’t, you wouldn’t make it. You wouldn’t last another week.” Asher tore his eyes away from mine. The fire fell to the ground abruptly, turning to smoldering ash as it hit the floor. I took an involuntary step backward into the shadows, pressing myself flat against the wall. He never showed me when he was worried or upset. That’s what he’d been trying to tell me that night on the roof. What I was seeing now was something I wasn’t supposed to. Some private moment that Asher hadn’t wanted me to see. Something he tried, every day, to hide from me by covering it up with wisecracks and banter. It was fear. Asher was afraid. Before he could say anything, I turned and ran back up to my room, snuggling deep under the quilt until morning. He didn’t come after me.
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